In “Our Dear Friends in Moscow. The Inside Story of a Broken Generation,” journalists Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov set out to understand how some of their fellow journalists in Russia came to accept wholeheartedly the actions of Vladimir Putin’s government.
Their friends are not uneducated Russians with no access to anything but official Russian government information. They are a group of highly educated, multilingual, well-traveled journalists who have spent their professional lives punching holes in governmental falsehoods. “What happened?” they ask. “How could we have ended up on such violently opposed sides?”
The book begins in first years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency when the two journalists are working at the newspaper Segodnya (Today), once the most popular newspaper in Russia. It ends when they are living in exile in the U.K. with Soldatov on Russia’s “most wanted” list.
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Over the years and during the country’s aggression in Georgia and Crimea; street protests; the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya; the arrest, poisoning and murder of Alexei Navalny; Ukraine’s “Maidan” movement; and Russia’s war in Ukraine, [Russian journalists] Baranov, Akopov and Krutikov not only become more aligned with Putin’s positions, they break all the rules of journalism to promote them.
Meanwhile, their women friends are not entirely uncritical of the government, but thanks to protection in high places they have storied careers: Lyubimova rises through the ranks to become Minister of Culture; Babayeva is assigned to the enviable postings as head of RIA Novosti in London and Washington. Before finishing the book Soldatov and Borogan contact their friends and ask them to speak about their views. Some won’t or can’t respond; some are unrepentant.
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